Joe Sandaev Claims the Top Spot in Day 1e of APO Main Event
Day 1e was the penultimate starting flight for the 2025 Australian Poker Open Main Event and it turned out to be the biggest yet — with 145 entrants taking their shot at APO glory here at Club Marconi at Doltone House Western Sydney. By the time the last card was dealt, Aussie tournament grinder Joe Sandaev emerged as the chip leader of the 18 survivors after accumulating 817,000 in chips — good for the second spot overall across all completed starting flights.
Sandaev is a regular in the Australian poker tournament scene with over $1,000,000 in live-tournament earnings. The vast majority of Sandaev's cashes have come from tournaments in Australia, with his breakout performance coming from a WPT High Roller Event in 2022 for a score of A$296,589.
More than three starting stacks separate Sandaev from his next-closest competitors Timon Prill (668,500) and Shayne Leroy (658,000). The fourth spot belongs to Marc Seymour, who placed ninth in the APO Main Event last year and will surely be looking to make another deep run with his big stack.
APO Main Event Day 1e Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe Sandaev | Australia | 817,000 | 82 |
| 2 | Timon Prill | Australia | 668,500 | 67 |
| 3 | Shayne Leroy | Australia | 658,000 | 66 |
| 4 | Marc Seymour | Australia | 628,000 | 63 |
| 5 | Constantinos Boucas | Australia | 590,000 | 59 |
| 6 | Kenta Ito | Australia | 548,500 | 55 |
| 7 | Amin Riyazati | Australia | 462,500 | 46 |
| 8 | Chao Duan | China | 451,000 | 45 |
| 9 | Travis Endersby | Australia | 388,000 | 39 |
| 10 | Liam Jehu | Australia | 355,000 | 36 |
Day 1e Highlights
Last year's runner-up in the Main Event, Higor Seibel, entered Day 1e after having already entered multiple times in previous flights and was looking for redemption. Seibel got off to a hot start by catching a flush to bust Romain Morvan (who immediately reentered). From that point, Seibel was unable to build a particularly impressive stack, but he still skillfully navigated his way to a bag worth 243,000.
Poker crusher and high-roller regular Kahle Burns was in attendance, but faltered early after losing a race to Najeem Ajez early on. Not long after, Seymour called a shove from Burns with ten-nine and caught two pair against Burns' ace-king to eliminate him.
A roller-coaster of a day saw Albert Ng briefly claiming the chip lead after running aces into Ken Bolton's queens late in the evening. However, the swings of fortune favor no one in poker, and Ng found himself on the losing end of a massive pot after flopping a pair of kings against Sandaev's two pair. While Sandaev catapulted into the chip lead, Ng found himself on the rail shortly thereafter.
A brief bubble only saw two rounds of hand-for-hand play. On the second hand, both Morvan and Bolton found themselves all in and at risk at different tables. Both times the inferior hand won, but while Morvan cracked Seymour's kings with ace-queen to double up, Liam Jehu cracked Bolton's aces in brutal fashion to bring an end to Day 1e.
Day 1f, which is the sixth and final flight, will take place on Thursday, April 24 at noon. All players who failed to earn a Day-2 berth can reenter an unlimited amount of times in the final flight until late registration closes at the start of Level 10.
With just one flight to go, the action is sure to be spicy as players try one last time to secure a spot into Day 2. Be sure to keep it with PokerNews for ongoing coverage of the APO Main Event right up until the next champion is crowned.